


a paradise lost

by Phaenna



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: 10 Days of Abby Griffin, Baby Fic, Bunker Fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11981724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phaenna/pseuds/Phaenna
Summary: Abby Griffin wakes up in the bunker after she strictly told Marcus she didn't want to live anymore, and soon she finds that her world has swiftly begun to turn upside down...But, really, is that life what she actually wants? Or certain memories from her past will haunt her forever?|10 days of Abby Griffin|





	1. so shall the world go on

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I’m here for the #10daysofAbbyGriffin appreciation. This is definitely a bunker!fic and its ten chapters will all be connected. Just pay attention to the “x days after Praimfaya” titles because I’ll be going back and forth in time. Oh, and remember: English isn’t my first language and I didn’t have anyone to beta this, so… my grammar is most definitely shit. If you find some big mistake, please let me know! :) Jo.-

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 1. Favorite Outfit/Hairstyle.  
> It’s just loosely based on that, though, because my original idea merged with Abby/Octavia feels (which would more accurately fit on the second day), but whatever. I’m posting it anyway.

**Three hundred and sixty-five days after Praimfaya.**

Abby sat on her bed, her legs shaking after a long shift in surgery. She had run out of Medical after a surgery gone wrong, a panic attack threatening to happen in front of everyone. The threadbare scrubs she was wearing were sweaty, and she couldn’t help but wonder if Marcus would come home soon so he could peel them off for her. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t move. She just wanted to lay down naked and sleep for days, tired even for moving a single finger on her hand.

But Abby knew he wasn’t coming, and she also knew she didn’t want him to see her like that _this day_ in particular, so she tried to summon every bit of strength she had left and stepped into the shower, letting her clothes fall on the floor and promising she’d wash them tomorrow.

The water wasn’t the same freezing temperature it had been on the Ark, where having hot water had been the least of their worries. The bunker was prepared for everything, and despite the fact that the shower of their room was tiny and only allowed one person at a time, Abby and Marcus were glad they didn’t have to share common bathrooms with other people. Perks of being Chancellor - _and basically the father of Heda_ , Abby thought with a tired smile.

So she spent more minutes than the strictly necessary on the shower, trying to wash away her worries and tiredness, but failing nonetheless.

The moment she stepped out of the shower, she heard movement in the room and smiled because of course Marcus would be there in the middle of the day if he knew she had just gotten out of a long shift. He probably had food and something to drink, and maybe, if she was lucky, the mind to hug her and not ask her what had happened today. She didn’t really want to talk at all. Not after a year inside that damned bunker and forty-six people less — _forty-seven today_ , she thought grimly.

Abby walked out of the bathroom wrapped in an old towel that barely covered the top of her thighs, and put on a fake smile ready to say hi to Marcus for the first time in days — they had been having shifts in different hours and had barely been able to say _good morning_ when the other was getting ready for bed.

But what welcomed her was a sixteen year old girl perched in _her_ bed, playing with _her_ old Rubik’s cube and… Wait, were those _her_ glasses? She’d never admit she had stopped wearing her own glasses because she knew the girl would take them when she thought Abby wasn’t looking. But while that had always amused her more than annoyed her, today was another case.

“Goddammit, Octavia!”

In that moment, nobody would think that girl was Heda kom Wonkru. And next to her, chewing on a stuffed polar bear, was five-months-old Eden, her big dark eyes looking all around the room. Abby had to smile despite everything, not having seen her baby daughter for over twenty-four hours.

“Hi,” Octavia grinned when Abby went closer to the bed to press a kiss over Eden’s tiny forehead, ignoring both the woman’s state of undress, and the fact that she was in her room with her things. “Indra sent me here,” was her explanation, and Abby raised an eyebrow, doubtful. “She says she saw you after Meilo’s surgery and that you looked like shit… And no, those weren’t her exact words, but it doesn’t make it less true!”

“Are you saying Marcus had nothing to do with this?” Abby nodded towards the sandwich and hot cup of tea in her sidetable, and Octavia’s silence was enough of an answer. They regarded each other for a few seconds, until Abby remembered she hadn’t even dressed. “Thanks for the food, Octavia. You can leave now, I think I want to get dressed privately and put Eden to sleep myself.”

The girl smirked.

“Oh, no, no, no. I’m not leaving. Ka… Indra told me to stay here with you the rest of the afternoon.”

“I thought you had said before that Heda answered to no-one…”

And of course Octavia didn’t bother to answer to that, nor to get up and leave. She kept playing with the little cube, trying to solve it in vain. Abby simply rolled her eyes, too tired to argue, and grabbed her clothes so she could dress properly inside the bathroom.

Few minutes later, dressed in her old blue shirt and a pair of black leggings they had found on the bunker’s, she discovered Octavia hadn’t moved an inch, her brow furrowed and the cube in her hands not seeming to be any less scrambled. But the baby had rolled over, and she went towards her to move her farther from the edge of the bed.

“So, are you going to be my nanny too? Wasn’t Eden enough?”

“Actually, I’m here to force you to sleep.”

Abby didn’t bother saying anything else, tired as she was she didn’t have the energy to argue. Octavia wouldn’t go even if she begged her, or yelled, or threatened to tell Marcus about her need for glasses she didn’t want to get. So she just sat on her bed, combed her messy hair with her fingers and, after switching it all to one side, started to loosely braid it.

“Can I?”

Octavia’s voice was low, as if she were afraid of asking such thing - _which would be stupid_ _,_ Abby thought, given that Octavia never showed fear in front of anyone who wasn’t either Bellamy or Marcus. So she just smiled to her, sat with her back to Octavia, and closed her eyes.

“I’ve been wanting a french braid for so long, but I can’t do it myself,” was the only thing she said, and Octavia, who would never admit she had done it, smiled too and sighed with relief.

She was used to braiding her mother’s hair before bed when she was a little kid, and then Aurora would do the same for her. After she had been floated, her cell mates in the Sky Box wouldn’t do it, so she started letting her hair loose, hanging freely over her shoulders and getting messy as fuck by the end of the day.

Then, on Earth, she had Lincoln, who had taught her how to braid Grounder-style, and who used to do her hair every single morning. But Lincoln was gone, too, and for a long time, braids just meant pain and lost things for her.

It was still painful, grabbing Abby’s hair in three small strands and beginning to braid a small portion on the top of her head, but it was the healing kind of pain. She would never admit it, never say it outloud, but that normalcy felt good: sitting in bed by the end of the day, getting ready to sleep and just running her fingers through the woman’s thin hair. Eden was cooing besides them, and even that sound felt good, felt _right._

And while Abby was thinking the same, she would never talk about it with Octavia in fear of scaring her, of making her close off again. So after the mix of braids in her hair were done, she silently slipped into bed with a baby in her arms and a teenager by her side, something she hadn’t done since Clarke was Octavia’s age. She felt her last bit of energy disappear as soon as she laid her head on the pillow, and her last thoughts before finally falling asleep were that she’d soon force Octavia to come to Medical for proper glasses, whether she wanted it or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not saying Abby’s best look is stepping naked out of the shower… But that’s exactly what I’m saying. Just kidding, I really love her blue “shoulder-lace” shirt, and I wanted to add some details that I’d love on Abby: Grounder braids, leggings, and glasses (even though she wasn’t actually wearing them, lol).


	2. under a shade, on flowers, much wondering where and what I was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2: An underrated relationship.  
> I had to choose Abby and Jake because I really wish this fandom focused a little bit more on them. Again, this is unbeta-ed and I'm always a mess.

**One day after Praimfaya**.

Abby wakes up to a feeling she thought she had lost forever. Without opening her eyes, she pulls the old wool blanket over her head while rolling onto her side. She knows it’s _impossible_ , but she smiles nevertheless, relishing on the feeling of laying on the long-forgotten thin mattress. She had slept for over twenty years in that bed, of course she remembers how it feels! It doesn’t explain how is she back there all of a sudden, but Abby decides she doesn’t have to understand that yet; she just wants to _feel_ again.

Sometimes, back when she was living there, she hated all of that. Long shifts on her feet in Medical after an emergency surgery required long nights of undisturbed sleep, and feeling the hard metal structure of the bed under her back because of an old mattress was not helpful at all. Some days were easier than others to ignore it. But on the nights the Ark heating system would start to fail and Jake would be forced out of bed to help, she cursed the thin threadbare blankets and curled into herself, giving up sleep after a few minutes and getting up to start her shift earlier.

But after losing Jake, after starting to sleep on Clarke's bed (her own was too big, too empty, too cold without Jake's body pressing against hers while they slept), she had started to miss that. And now it was back.

She suddenly hears something move a few meters away, probably near the door. She slowly opens her eyes and tries to focus on what’s around her. The room is exactly like the last time she had seen it. But there is a shadow by the door, a shadow that slowly, as she focuses her sleep-blurred eyes, starts to turn into a way-too-familiar shape that makes her heart start to beat faster.

It’s _him_.

"Jake" she whispers, because his name on her lips had been a thing long forgotten, and she needs to say it outloud  for it to be real. "Oh, honey..."

Jake smiles, and is sitting on the bed besides her in an instant.

They hug for a long time. When he pulls back, one of his hands moves towards her chest, where the lack of a necklace was obvious for both. Abby had gotten used to the slight weight and cold feeling of her husband's ring there, and while she doesn’t regret taking it off, she sometimes misses it, misses the comforting feeling of metal against her fingers when she needs something to hold onto.

"Jake, I..." she starts, but doesn’t really know what she means to say. Was she apologizing? Does she really need to do that? Does she _want_ to? Or is she just trying to say how much she has misses him, how much she sometimes wishes he had lived enough to land on earth, to see all those beautiful things by her side.

But she can’t even say a word.

Jake keeps running his fingers over the place where his ring would've been, and when Abby looks up, tears shining in her eyes, he is smiling wide. He doesn’t speak, but she just knows... She starts crying even harder now, gripping his forearm and letting her head fall onto his shoulder.

"Baby," she hears him say, and the sound of his voice after almost two years is enough to make her really break. "Baby," he repeats, softly, "it's okay."

And Abby knows he doesn’t mean just her crying, just her missing him.

“You have to go back,” he whispers, pressing gentle kisses against her hair. "You have to save the world, Abby. Clarke needs you, Raven needs you... Marcus needs you."

“I…” she stammers again. “I miss you, Jake.”

“I know, honey,” he says, wrapping his arms tighter around her, “I miss you too. But you can’t stay here forever. And neither can I.”

 

* * *

 

By the time she wakes up, head pounding and Jackson’s worried face right next to her, she barely remembers what her dream was about.

“What happened?” Abby asks hoarsely, trying to sit up and groaning when cold white pain shoots through her spine reaching her head. When Jackson doesn’t answer immediately, every single memory of the last few days, weeks and months start dancing in her mind, spiralling out of control and making her dizzy once again.

_I love you, Clarke. Don’t ever forget that._

_There was no good choice._

_Take care of each other._

_I don’t know who I am anymore._

_When that door closes today, I need to be on the other side._

_I love you, Marcus, but I’ve made my decision._

She had said her goodbyes to the people she loved the most. She had made her peace with her decision, she was going to die because living would be unbearable, and now she hates with every single cell in her body that Marcus had disobeyed her last order. But then again, why would he start listening to her now?


	3. so farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3: Favorite quote.  
> I'm a day late, I know, but I wasn't feeling good because of some stuff regarding the Kabby con, so... I didn't really feel like posting.

**Three days after Praimfaya**.

She sleeps, she wakes up, she remembers.

The pain, it seems, won’t ever stop being unbearable; she should’ve gotten used to it by now, but it’s something she hadn’t exactly expected. Abby had always hoped Clarke would be safe, and that after everything _she_ had done to make sure of it, she should be the one on the other side of that door, not her daughter. Nothing on the ground was sure, but she knew Clarke deserved that place more than she did, and nothing anyone said would be able to convince her otherwise.

But Clarke hadn’t returned, Marcus hadn’t let her leave, and everything Abby had been sure of was now crumbled to pieces. And now she doesn’t know how to come back from that.

So she keeps sleeping, keeps waking up, and keeps remembering.

When she first woke up after the gassing, Jackson was there. Her blood pressure was going back to normal, he’d said, and if her energy was back in the next twenty-four hours he’d let her leave Medical and go rest in her quarters.

But the thing is, Abby didn’t want to leave.

The moment she had arrived to the bunker, previous to all the hell they’d lived in the last few days, she had claimed one of the suites reserved to the leaders for Marcus and, with a silent agreement, for her. But now she doesn’t want to see him just yet, and the truth is that she doesn’t know if she’d ever be able to look at him in the eye and forgive him for taking away her own choice, the only certainty she had had.

And the hours keep passing, and Abby is still in silence, alone in a cot in the corner or Med Bay, trying to drown her own thoughts with endless hours of sleep. She’s not feeling well, having reacted awfully to the gas, and it’s another thing she needs to blame Marcus for.

She knows, in the rational part of her mind, she doesn’t want to see him yet, but part of her is also angry because he hasn’t come to see her since she woke up. It’s been three days, what is keeping him away from her? Is it the fact that she had explicitly told him she wanted —needed— to die? Or is it just that he doesn’t want to deal with her wrath amongst all the other problems he had? Maybe, she thinks it’s more probable, the issue was Clarke, and Bellamy, and Raven, and all the other kids that she’d allowed to leave and had never came back.

Good Lord, she’s going crazy: she’s not feeling like herself. And _that_ she has her brain to blame for.

She doesn’t know if Jackson told Marcus yet about the consequences of her brain problem, but if he did, maybe that’s the reason he hasn’t come there yet. It’s either he doesn’t want to upset her, or he doesn’t want to see her like that — dying. But neither of those options is Marcus Kane-like, so she keeps wondering, lying in bed, what’s happening outside of Medical… And hoping both he comes and that she’d die before that happened.

* * *

Two days have gone by, and still she isn't feeling well. A few kids and an old Trikru man are still in Medical too with side effects from the gas, and Abby is sure her brain is worsening the effects for her. She's been having awful dreams again, but she forgets whatever happened them the minute she wakes up. She just knows they're terrible because of the fear she can taste in her mouth, her heart beating wild and her head hurting like hammer went straight to hit it.

During her breakfast three days after Praimfaya’s death wave hit, Abby realizes something that strikes directly to her chest: she's dying there, alone in Medical. Bile is rising up her throat and she's having difficulty swallowing, breathing, moving. Even though she's sitting at the bed's edge, the world seems to be moving all around her, and the headache that's been permanently with her since she first woke up is worse than ever.

So she cries. For the first time since she told Marcus she loved him and left that office, she cries.

For the life she had lead, and the life she'll miss. For the things she never said and the things she'd never say again. For Clarke, for Marcus, for Jake. For Raven and John and Bellamy and all the kids she didn't know the fate of. For Eric, for Indra, for Nate, for Niylah, for Octavia and for all the people she knew would take care of Marcus in her place. For Callie, for Vera, for Jacapo, for Nyko, for everyone who had died and she had outlived. Because every single one of them deserved to see more of this Earth than she had ever had.

She cries for the life she wants to keep living, for the life her soul doesn't let her live. She doesn't deserve it, her sins are beyond absolution and, even if they weren't, the memories of everything that had happened _because_ of her wouldn't even let her breath, the weight of every person dead because she couldn't save them crushing her chest at nights and taking all air from her lungs. And that was nothing Marcus arms around her and sweet nothings in her ear would help her with.

* * *

That's how he finds her. A tiny ball of brown messy hair made of sobs and a broken heart. She had once kissed his cheek and called it hope. Now what wouldn't he do to bring that Abby back?

Jackson had been updating him on her state, but he hadn't dared put a foot in Medical yet. He's sure she must hate him, the man taking away her chance to reunite with her husband once again, a man so selfish he didn't respect her wishes and just focused on his own. The man who had promised her daughter would be okay, and was now forcing her to live in a world without her.

So Marcus had let Abby be. He still asked Jackson at least five times a day about her, and he still woke up with dried tears all over his face. He knows she won't ever want him close again, he knows that the last time he'd ever be able to hold her close had been four days ago against a desk in the office. And by God he wishes he would've been able to made love to her slowly that last time, to hold her in his arms as long as she'd let him, and whisper over and over again how much he loved her in her ear. He'll never forgive himself, but he'll never regret it either. He's glad he even had the opportunity to have Abby's love, even if it was for a short period of time.

But when that morning Jackson had came running to his quarters, knocking loudly on the metal door and, to be honest, scaring the shit out of him, his resolution of staying away from Abby had disappeared. Two words and it was gone.

That's the reason he's there now, and Abby doesn't even know it yet.

By the look of it, she's having a panic attack, and Marcus doesn't doubt a second in running to her bed and wrapping her in his arms, holding her close while letting her enough space to breathe.

“Shh, Abby, it's okay,” he says, but she doesn't seem to realize she isn't alone. “Breathe slowly, like this… In… And out… In… And out…”

It takes him a while to get Abby's attention, but he has to sigh in relief when her breathing starts being more regular, her shaking body slumping against his, her dead weight supported by him. She's tired, she's more tired than she's ever been in her life, and after everything that had happened in the last two years, that's to say something.

“Marcus…”

Abby's eyes widen: she just realized he's there, he's holding her, he _saved_ her, and can't believe how good it feels. She soon remembers she doesn't deserve it, neither his arms around her nor feeling in peace, but she can't make herself move yet. She wants to enjoy it, a selfish thing maybe, before she's able to speak and stay apart from him forever.

He's the one who breaks their embrace, after making sure she’s steady enough to sit on her own. He moves back a little, standing in front of her, almost close enough to be between her legs. That’s when she notices the envelope in his hand, a little crumpled and wet with tears, and the Second Dawn logo with a caduceus over it. She knows what it is, and dreads having to talk about it.

“Marcus, I know what you’re feeling,” she starts, and that’s the first time in days she’s said a sentence that long, “but there’s nothing that can save me. Raven’s not here, we don’t have the resources she had in Becca’s lab. That’s why I wanted to be left outside. It’s not going to be pretty, and I’m surely already half gone by now… There’s no hope left for me to ever get out of a hospital bed, and you really should stay apart before the inevitable happens…” Abby sighs, her eyes closed. She can’t look at Marcus while saying goodbye. “I love you, you know that, but for your sake I need you to go and never look back. I… I’m glad I had these months to get to know the man you’ve become, but I never deserved it and now I’m paying the price…”

There’s a moment of silence, where her ragged breaths and her thumping heart are the only things she can listen to. Her eyes are still closed, tears falling down her cheeks and over her clothes, and her breath catches in her throat when she feels Marcus’ hand wiping some of her tears off. _Of course_ he’d try to comfort her, but she’s past that now.

“Marcus, you should…” But she stops mid sentence. She has opened her eyes now, and to her surprise, he’s smiling.

That’s it, she has lost it.

She’s probably having one of her dreams or is really out of her mind now, because there’s no freaking way the Marcus Kane she knows would be smiling after everything she’s said. But it does seem real, it seems true and normal, and something tugs at her chest, something akin to joy.

“Your brain is just fine,” he says, unable to keep his smile from widening, “the same old stubborn Abby.” She’s speechless, and now sure _he_ ’s the one who’s lost it. “You should’ve known,” he laughs a little, “but I don’t blame you. So busy, trying to save all of us, trying not to lose your humanity…”

“But I have.” Her voice is just a whisper, and Marcus cups her cheek in his hand, running his thumb over her trembling lips, his smile still present.

“You can find it again. We can do it, together. Because you’re not dying, Abigail Griffin. Not on my watch.”

And she can’t ask why, she has no words left, and then he’s opening the envelope and taking out at least three pages of numbers and words he doesn’t understand, but he’s sure she’ll be able to recognize in a second.

Silence. Thumping hearts and both dread and hope.

“What’s that?” Abby finally asks, even though as a doctor she knows perfectly well what those numbers in front of her mean. High hCG levels, _really_ high ones. She must be — what? Eight, nine weeks pregnant? Everything around her is moving, the world spinning and shifting, making her dizzy, but Marcus’ arms are the thing that keep her in place. With him, anchoring her to reality, to this new world, everything would be okay.

That’s why, when he realizes she isn’t going to push him away, the only answer Marcus can think of is, “Let’s call it hope.”


	4. part of my soul I seek thee, and claim thee my other half

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 4: Favorite Abby headcanon.  
> I know I'm really late, but life's been keeping me busy lately. I promise I'll try to finish this fic by the end of September.

**A hundred and ninety-eight days after Praimfaya.**

“It’s a girl.”

Indra’s words come as a surprise that afternoon in Octavia’s office. They were supposed to be at a meeting with the Ambassadors, but a Delphi leader had died the day before and some clans were having a private funeral. Abby has nothing to do in that office, and everyone is aware, but Medical is empty and she thought it was a good time as any to talk about her plans for the next few months. Some healers didn’t want to collaborate with the clinic, but the amount of people that go daily for check-ups and simple questions is high despite the short population.

But the conversation had left that topic when Abby mentioned something about not having a working ultrasound machine, and Octavia asking, failing nonchalance, if she wasn’t going to know what the baby was until it was born.

That is the moment Indra chimes in.

“What?” Marcus eyebrows shoot up to his forehead, and Abby would’ve laughed if she wasn’t curious about Indra’s words.

“It’s how you’re carrying,” the woman explains, rolling her eyes as if it was the dumbest thing in the world. “They say if they child is a girl, mothers carry it higher and it seems rounder. For boys, it’s lower and almost lopsided.”

Abby smiles. In the Ark, they used to say the same old wives tales, but she had never looked much into it, not from a scientific point of view. She knew it was pointless. But she remembers Clarke had been sitting high for most of her pregnancy, even though of course towards the end she had decided to leave her ribs alone and sleep permanently over her bladder, with not very pleasant consequences for her mother.

But this pregnancy feels way different, and she knows this child will make everything a hundred ways harder than Clarke. Abby smiles at that thought: the kid was like their father, already. And despite not being able to know if their baby was going to be a girl or a boy, just imagining a mini-Marcus walking around, being as stubborn as they both were, amused her as much as it made her heart soar. _Fucking hormones_ , she thinks, while she tries to hide the single tear falling down her cheek.

* * *

“So, a girl, huh?” Marcus asks the moment the door of their quarters closes, sitting on the bed and eyeing her carefully while he slips off his boots.

“We won’t know for sure until the baby is born,” Abby says, rolling her eyes with a fond smile in her lips, but it soon disappears when she turns to Marcus and sees the look on his face. “Is everything alright?”

He shakes his head, and Abby thinks he seems nervous, for some reason. Wary of her, maybe. But that would be stupid, right? He has no reason to be.

“Would...?” he stops before continuing, in a lower tone, “Would you be alright if the baby was a girl?”

Abby’s hands still in the button of her pants, and looks at him straight in the eye. The way he asked that seemed weird, and she can’t explain why it’s putting her on edge.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you already have a girl…”

Her breath hitches in her throat. Sure he isn’t implying he’s worried she’ll try to use this baby to replace Clarke… But he seems to catch on what she’s thinking and shakes his head, hurrying to explain.

“I didn’t mean… _that_. But, you know, it’s nothing new to you. And every pair of siblings I’ve ever known have been boy and girl… I’m not sure if… I don’t know that…” He’s visibly struggling to explain his point, and Abby takes pity on him, going to his side and curling her hand around his shoulder.

“Do you really think it matters to me whether this baby is a boy or a girl?”

When he doesn’t answer, eyes fixed on his bare feet, she feels a sob rise up in her chest. Abby knows he still isn’t sure of her feelings for him: it’s not like she doesn’t demonstrate them as many times a day as she can, but he’s always been unsure of himself, even when he presented himself to the world as this strong, cold man Councilor Kane was. And now he thinks he’s her second choice, that everything she’s having with him is second-hand, mere copies of things she had had before… And how she wishes she can make him understand it’s not even close to being like that.

“Marcus, it doesn’t matter if I already had a girl nineteen years ago, and I’m getting another one now,” Abby starts, patiently. “I love this baby so much already, my heart feels like it’s expanded a thousand times bigger to make place for them.” At her words, he nods absentmindedly, as if agreeing with her. “I won’t love a baby girl any less just because I’ve already gave birth to one… Just as I don’t love you any less because I’ve already had a husband before.”

“But I’m not your husband,” Marcus whispers, and it’s such a silly thing to say that Abby fondly bursts out laughing.

“Legal marriage is just a piece of paper, honey,” she explains, her hand buried in his hair bringing his head down to her shoulder. “To all intents and purposes, the reality is I love you with everything I have. _I love you,_ Marcus, and I love our baby. So stop being an idiot about it, because I’m not letting you continue thinking things like that. You know, my love isn’t like an hourglass, emptying with every person I happen to love as life goes by, time and love running out together. It doesn’t work that way.” Her words are said with a smile, and Marcus sighs, nodding on her shoulder.

“I know,” he has to admit, “but it’s hard for me to get used to it.”

And she gets it, oh, does she get it! It took her almost an year for her to believe she was capable of loving again after everything that had happened those last months on the Ark, she understands how is it like for him.

“Okay, then” she starts, a playful smile on her face, shifting in the bed and throwing one of her legs over his lap. Her eight-months pregnant belly doesn’t allow her to wrap herself around him as close as she would like, but then Marcus’ hand is over their restless child’s elbow — or maybe their foot, and she can’t help but think that’s what Heaven feels like. “I’m going to make sure you understand that,” and she smirks while ducking down to press a small kiss on the corner of his mouth, starting to roll her hips against his, “even if it takes me all night long, or every single night for the rest of our lives.”

* * *

It’s midnight somewhere above their heads by the moment they fall, exhausted and sated, back on the mattress, trying to regain their breaths. Abby laughs, suddenly, and Marcus turns his head on the pillow to look at her, his eyebrow raised.

“The baby just woke up again,” she explains, and if she hadn’t just had three orgasms in a row, maybe she wouldn’t be laughing at the fact that she was probably not getting to sleep anytime soon. “Can’t believe it, it seems they make it on purpose.” But she’s smiling fondly, and Marcus laughs too, wrapping his arm around her, feeling the baby kick and move under his hand.

“We can’t keep calling the baby _The Baby_ ,” he says after a few minutes in silence, something like amusement in his voice, and Abby thinks those are most definitely Octavia’s words, “poor kid will think it’s their name when they’re born.” He’s silent for a minute, then… “We need a name.”

“I’ve had one for more than forty years, thank you very much,” Abby answers dryly, and Marcus breath hitches. He wants to laugh at the lame joke, but it immediately brings him back to the person he first heard it from, and a shiver runs up his spine. He hasn’t thought of _her_ in such a long time, he can only feel guilty.

When he looks up, Abby is staring at him in a way that makes him realize _she_ had been the one who taught her that joke, too. And now they cannot avoid the thing they’ve been trying to forget since they first put a foot on Earth.

“Do you miss her?” she asks, her voice hoarse and trembling, as if she would burst out crying anytime soon, but her face is straight, made of stone, and Marcus knows she doesn’t want to break in front of him. Not over _her_.

“I… I haven’t even… It’s not that I wanted to _forget,_ but it was better, I think, to get over it without remembering… And since we came down, we’ve been so busy… Gosh, I _do_ miss her,” he admits. “I miss her so much. And I’ll never forgive myself being such an ass to her the last time we talked...”

Abby sits up on the bed next to him, and puts her head on his shoulder, sighing. Thinking of her hurts so much, her chest seems to break every time she pops into her head. _That’s my broken heart_ , she always thinks when it happens, _trying to heal itself but breaking again in no time_.

Missing Callie Cartwig should’ve been the thing that united Marcus and Abby when they first fell to Earth but, in reality, avoiding that topic had worked even better for them. And that’s a thing both feel guilty about.

“I never asked her, you know,” Marcus starts, a raised eyebrow and something weird in his voice, after some minutes in silence, “whether the rumors were true.” But he’s smiling, and Abby tenses but relaxes almost immediately after his first words.

“Which rumors?” she asks, a nostalgic look in her glazed eyes contrasting with her smirk. “I think I heard so many things during my whole life regarding Callie, I’m not even sure myself if they were real or not.” Marcus laughs at her words, Abby smiles even bigger, and suddenly it’s like a weight is lifted from both of their shoulders, and they can breathe in peace.

In the end, all that Callie wanted was for Marcus and Abby to go back being - well, not friends, they had never been friends before, but at least amicable with each other. And that’s yet another thing both of them have spent months being guilty about.

“I think you know exactly which one I’m talking about,” he continues, a hint of amusement in his tone, and Abby starts fiddling with the loose sheets under her, feeling conflicted.

“It’s not like you two were exclusive, those last few years” she whispers, suddenly unsure of what’s the answer he’s waiting for, and how will he react to it, “right? She… She never explained, so I assumed… But I never asked, and now I realize I should’ve…”

Marcus stops her by cupping her cheek and putting his thumb over her lips, taking pity on her because, when Abby starts doubting her own words, that means it’s bad.

“It’s okay,” he smiles, and Abby’s shoulders slump a little under the arm he has over them, “it’s not like we were married…” But now it’s time for Marcus to stop short in his tracks and gasp after he realizes what exactly is that he said. She stands up abruptly, pulling a green robe over her shoulders and walking to the other side of their tiny living quarters.

“It wasn’t like that,” she spats, even though it comes out as a whisper, and neither of them speak a word for a very long time after that.

Marcus is sure he oughts to say sorry, but something stops him: he didn’t mean it the way it sounded. But the words were said anyway, and Abby’s eyes are cold when she turns around to look at him again.

“ _He_ knew,” she starts saying, and Marcus doesn’t dare to do anything but listen without moving an inch, “ever since the beginning. We… I was a kid, Marcus,” she explains, “and I _didn’t know…_ How could I? I had no one to explain such things to me, and I couldn’t ask. Biology classes wouldn’t help me, and I just thought… You know, if it happened, it was normal, it ought to be. I didn’t feel weird, it didn’t feel off… So I just told him. And we all went along with it.”

Her words confuses him, makes him think of a hundred different possibilities, but that’s not the moment to interrupt and ask for a clearer explanation. Abby is lost in her own memories, ones from almost thirty years ago, and he really wants her to talk to him, because it’s clear that she needs it. So many years of secrets and hidden moments, it is time she lets it go.

“I was thirteen,” she breathes, pacing herself, realizing how little sense she was making before, “the night my mom died. Callie was there, and hold me to her chest all night long while I cried.” She stops for a minute, and breathes deeply before continuing. “I started staying more and more at her house, when my dad wouldn’t come home for days at a time, shifts after shifts in Surgery keeping him busy. Then he died, too, and I was left alone in the world. But Callie was there again. She was my best friend, always had been, the only constant I’d had for my whole life.”

Abby is silent again for a moment, sighing, and it seems like she wants to add something but bites her tongue before saying it. That’s not the moment, she’ll have more opportunities to bring up that topic to Marcus, when he’s ready.

“The first time I thought about _it,_ I was sixteen,” Abby continues, and it looks like she’s bracing herself to reveal a hidden truth she hasn’t said outloud in ages. And that’s exactly what it is. “We were as close as we could be. We had so much fun together, and I really couldn’t imagine my life without Callie in it. I remember watching her sleep one day, thinking how grateful I was for having her in my life, such a smart, sweet, _beautiful_ girl I didn’t deserve as a friend. And then it clicked…”

Silence.

“You can’t even imagine how it hurt — having to spend every single hour of every single day next to her, and knowing that I _loved_ her. Oh, how I loved her, Marcus!”

Abby’s crying now, and all he wants to do is stand up and wrap his arms tight around her, let her cry on his shoulder, letting him comfort her. But he’s not sure it’s the right moment, so he lets her be.

“Now that I knew, I couldn’t tell her. Gosh, how could I? What would I even say? It was like realizing that single fundamental truth about how I felt had opened a door and let a full-blown storm come in, sweeping me from my feet and not allowing me to come back to Earth — ironic as it sounds.”

She’s pacing now, running her left hand up and down her swollen belly and trying to stop any more tears from falling. Abby feels like an idiot, reacting that way to her own memories after so many years. But it’s different now that she’s telling it like a story, letting Marcus know something that important from her youth, something she hasn’t thought about for ages.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off of her, after that,” she continues, a mirthless smile in her face, reminiscing her teenage self. “Whenever she would change into her pajamas in front of me, as we were used to since we were kids, all I could think about was burying my mouth between her tiny soft breasts, and sucking on her beautiful dark nipples till she screamed my name. When we went to sleep together, it took me all I had not to throw one of my legs over hers and sneak my fingers inside her threadbare white underwear, running them up and down as I’d used to do to myself until wetness began to appear. And when she laughed… Oh, God, when she laughed so hard tears would run down her cheeks, I almost couldn’t restrain myself from kissing her straight in the mouth, taking all the air out of her lungs, pinning her to the wall and not moving off of her until she was gasping and begging me for more…”

Abby looks up, suddenly aware of exactly how much she had just revealed, so lost in her memories she was. But Marcus, despite blushing so hard she can see the red beneath his beard, is just grateful she trusts in him.

“It didn’t happen until my seventeenth birthday,” she shakes her head, and a small smile appears in her face. “And after that, we couldn’t take our hands off each other. It wasn’t just that we were hormonal teenagers basically living together, it was that I couldn’t imagine a world in which Callie Cartwig’s whole being didn’t belong to me.”

“And then we came into your lives,” Marcus whispers, his first words since he’d said what he’d said. And he couldn’t have been more right.

“And then you came into our lives,” she agrees, but she’s still smiling, so that part mustn’t be that terrible.

Marcus always feared both of them resented him for what had happened when they were young, and now was the time he got to know Abby’s thoughts about it, her side of the story, the only one he had never heard before.

“You know, I fell in love with Jake immediately, head over heels in love from the first time I saw him at that graduation dance. I…” she falters, “I didn’t know how was it possible for us to have lived all our lives in the same place but never cross paths before. How could I love someone so deeply and never have seen him until then.”

“You were from different stations,” he reasonably points out, and Abby nods. Jake and Marcus had both been Mecha boys, the reason Jake had always been interested in engineering. And while his best friend had always leaned towards either teaching or law enforcement, they both knew they’d keep being together wherever life would take them. And then, both passing their exams with Honors and getting into school at Alpha, arrived the moment where they met the two people that would change their lives forever.

But this is Abby’s story, and so he lets her keep talking at her own pace.

“Right. But I had this feeling, this _something…_ How could I feel so strongly about someone I was sharing air, and water, and space with, but had never even saw before? Because it hadn’t been like that with Callie, our feelings growing ever since we were kids, and it confused the fuck out of me. I truly didn’t know what Callie and I were,” she admits, and here comes the part Marcus is dreading, for some reason, to know. “So the first time I slept with Jake, I didn’t think much about it. He knew, he’d known since the beginning, and of course Callie knew too. I couldn’t keep anything from each other. And, for me, it was normal. It’s not like I had someone I could ask if that was alright,” she says, and cringes when it sounds like she’s justifying herself. “And when neither of them told me they didn’t agree on what was happening, I took it like everything was good. And it was, Marcus, for the three of us it really was…”

Abby stops pacing, then, and slowly comes to sit on the bed next to him. She needs to be close to Marcus again, because it’s not his fault, and it weren’t his words that had hurt her.

“I don’t need to remind you about the day we got married…”

Of course she doesn’t, but there’s something in her voice that makes him prompt her to continue talking, because clearly something else happened that day, something he doesn’t know.

“Callie was your Maid of Honor, and I was two seconds short of not being Jake’s Best Man…” The memories of that day are kind of blurred for Marcus, but he’ll never forget the joy on his best friend’s face when Abby was pronounced his wife. And he clearly remembers dancing with a drunk Callie at some point of the night, her telling him she was glad Abby had found someone like Jake to settle down, and he also remembers him wholeheartedly agreeing before turning around and leaving her with some of her friends.

“We were all so happy… I’d moved in with him just three months before the wedding, I was so excited to have a place to share with my _husband_ … And then, in the middle of the party, Callie came to me crying.”

Marcus’ heart starts beating fast. He doesn’t know if he wants to hear about it, the exact moment Callie’s heart was broken in a million pieces by her very best friend. The moment that had changed the relationship between the three - four - of them forever.

“I just brushed her off thinking she was drunk and emotional, but then she told me Diana Sydney had threatened her with telling Jake about us and…”

“I don’t get it,” Marcus says, and it’s the first time he interrupts her while she’s mid-sentence, his brow furrowed. “You said Jake _knew_ about Callie and you, that he was okay.” And he has no doubt that was the case, but her words still confuse him.

“He did, of course,” she smiles dryly, grabbing his hand between hers absentmindedly, “but that wasn’t what set Callie off. Diana could rot in hell for what we cared about her threats: I would’ve payed to see her face if she went to Jake and he just laughed and told her he knew I loved both of them.”

“Then, what…?”

“It was the fact that neither of us had realized that’s how people outside our little bubble of joy saw us.”

As smart as she was, innocent, barely-out-of-her-teens Abby had never thought anything about the fact that she’d sometimes spend the night with Callie, and others with Jake; that people would see her coming out of either of their quarters in the morning, and think she was cheating.

A liar, an unscrupulous woman, a whore. That’s what people had thought about her, and she had had no idea.

But she still couldn’t make sense of it, because it wasn’t a secret: she had thought everyone knew, everyone understood. How couldn’t they? She spent her whole day with Callie, and they didn’t act any differently when they were in public, besides keeping their clothes on. And it was exactly the same with Jake. So, what was the difference? Mono-normativity and a ring in her finger was it, and she’d never even saw it before that night.

“She said she didn’t want to be seen as the woman who’d be willing to break a marriage, like someone who’d let her best friend lie to his husband about where was she spending her nights at, and what was she doing with whom. I… I promised her I’d never let her be thought about that way, and that neither would Jake, but she was adamant, and…” Abby takes a deep breath, snuggling even more against Marcus’ side, “she asked me to forgive her, but we couldn’t keep on going like that. Then…”

“She broke your heart and you didn’t speak for two whole years.” He perplexedly completes her sentence because, even if he didn’t know the whole story until now, he remembers vividly the hell those two years were like for both of them.

And oh, that had come as a surprise he couldn’t have predicted. He’d always thought Abby marrying Jake was the thing that had broken Callie’s heart, but he’d never imagined sweet Cece would be the one to break Abby’s. How could he had lived twenty years around the three of them and never understand the simple complexity of their relationship’s extent?

“She broke my heart,” Abby agrees, “and with mine, she broke Jake’s. Two years later I was eight months pregnant and someone was knocking on the door. And then, as suddenly as she had gone, she came back. ”

Callie was back, after two years lying in Marcus arms at night, after him leaving her abruptly, starting to turn into the man he had been for the next eighteen years. That was the moment everything had started to shift into a new normalcy: a marriage, a baby, a best friend and an estranged one. All of that until their world turned upside down the moment Jake had discovered the air problem, and Callie had discovered the old Russian pod Raven had gone to Earth in, leading them both to an early death, and leaving Abby to try and save everything they had ever fought for: Clarke, their people, what was right.

“Jake loved her almost as much as I did,” Abby continues. “He welcomed her into his arms and whispered in her ear how much he wished he could turn time back and convince her to come back to me earlier. Few months later, your mother baptized newborn Clarke, and we both knew Callie had to be her godmother. We…” she adds, but stops short of continuing, correcting herself in the way. “Jake wanted you to be her godfather, but…”

“But I brushed him off saying I was a very occupied man, and that in the middle of my guard training and posterior full-time job I wouldn’t be able to care for a child,” he completes her sentence, “even when we all knew it was a lie.”

“And,” Abby has to chuckle in spite of herself, “I distinctly remember you saying that you didn’t believe making a cross out of holy water in the forehead of an infant would do any good.”

“I did say that,” Marcus agrees, lost in thought. “But I’m glad Thelonious was there for Clarke when she was growing up… I could hardly have been the _Uncle Mark_ Jake used to tease me with.”

At that, both of them laugh. It’s so strange, everything is so different now, but for some reason the memories don’t hurt that much anymore. It was like a magically healed wound: raw flesh few moments ago, and nothing but a scar and a light sting in its place.

“You know,” Marcus starts after a moment, a playful glint in his eyes, “you won’t let me name our kid Demeter or Elpida, but…”

Abby snorts, shaking her head and loving him for trying to lighten the mood. “We’re _not_ calling the baby Calliope. And that’s my last word on the matter.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanons? Here we go. I’m very big on the bi!Abby theory, and I’ve said plenty of times it’s one of my favorite headcanons ever. Plus Abby/Callie is something I wish this fandom would explore a little bit more. Also, I don’t think Abby and Marcus were ever friends when they were kids, but I do think he was close to Jake growing up, and had gone different ways when they grew up.  
> I really hope my point with this chapter is clear, but just in case I absolutely didn’t mean being bi always equals loving two people at the same time. Abby just happened to be/do both, and that’s okay. I was (and still am) a little afraid it had come like a shitty stereotypical portrayal of bi female characters fucking everyone they saw, because that was not my idea at all. And given that I’m still awful at English, I don’t know if it could be taken that way or not.  
> Anyway, Abby loved Callie and Jake, and she loves Marcus, and everything’s okay now.


	5. heaven's last best gift, my ever new delight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day: Griffin Women Appreciation

**Two thousand and two hundred days after Praimfaya.**

Madi wakes up alone in the dark. The sun is coming up at her left, and the moment she sits down and looks around, surprised that she’s woken up before Clarke did, the memories of the last few hours come rushing over her, leaving her dizzy and out of breath. _They’ve taken her._ Those strange people with weird suits have taken Clarke, and she’s alone in the middle of an empty Earth with nothing but a rifle, a radio and a Rover she doesn’t even know how to drive.

She’s eleven, for God’s sake, how can she possibly save Clarke?

The girl stands up on wobbly legs, her head hurting and bleeding in the place that tall woman had hit her with the small handgun she had. The last thing she remembers before passing out, was Clarke pleading they left Madi alone… And they’ve obviously done what she asked. The ship is nowhere to be seen, and she doesn’t know what to do first, where to go, how to save the woman who had saved her five years ago in that same forest.

So she grabs Clarke’s radio, looks up to the darkest part of the sky one last time - where a moving star can be seen, and prays to all the gods Clarke has taught her about that she can do something to save her. She’s going to Polis, she decides, because that’s her only chance. She’s going to Polis because she has a feeling that’s the beginning, as silly as that sounds, of her new life.

She’s going to Polis, mainly, because she can see a column of smoke and fire right where the old tower should’ve been, and she knows that’s no coincidence.

The walk there is not a short one, about a day and a half if she’s quick and doesn’t sleep much, but she’s done it more times than she can count in the last few years. _It will be okay,_ she tries to comfort herself. _Clarke’s there, for sure. She’s signaling me to go and save her, so that she can save the rest._ And, with that last thought, she starts her journey.

* * *

 

**Two thousand, two hundred and two days after Praimfaya.**

It’s mid-afternoon when she finally arrives, hungry and sweaty, about to pass out of exhaustion and her still-bleeding head wound. The fire has been put out, apparently, but she doesn’t get the chance to look around because, the moment she puts a foot on the city outskirts, gravity is beckoning her to the ground and she goes, calmly, feeling like she’s floating on a cloud. There’s someone there, she thinks just before passing out, someone yelling words she doesn’t understand, but she thinks it’s English.

“Good Lord, it’s a child!” a woman’s voice says. “Hurry, for God’s sake! She’s bleeding!” and the voice is coming closer, closer, closer, while Madi is drifting so far away she barely feels two strong arms wrapping around her and effortlessly picking her up, carrying her to some unknown place she doesn’t care about. Because, that exact time, the world goes black and then there’s nothing at all.

* * *

The first thing Madi realizes when she wakes up again, is that she’s on a bed. A _real_ bed. The soft mattress under her feels alien after more than six years sleeping either on the grass or in the hard backseat of the Rover. And after all that time, she hadn’t realized she had missed it. Until now.

She doesn’t open her eyes yet, basking silently in the warmth and comfort of a bed, a room in semi-darkness, and the smell of real food somewhere not far away. There’s people whispering, maybe not in the room but possibly near an open door, close enough that she can recognize there’s a man and woman, but far enough that their words trail off before getting to her ears.

The door closes and there’s silence again.

Madi falls asleep.

* * *

“Hey,” someone pushes on her shoulder, waking her up with a jolt despite the whispered words. “I’m sorry I woke you up!” the voice says, sheepishly, but when Madi opens her eyes and sees who is it, it’s very clear that the little child is not sorry at all.

“Where am I?” Madi asks, confused. She’s more alert and her head doesn’t hurt that much, so she thinks she should feel wary of her surroundings. What if she’s captured? What if they’re waiting for her to get better so they can torture her to get information they couldn’t get from Clarke? What if…?

“Home, of course,” the tiny girl says, rolling her eyes in a way that reminds her so clearly of Clarke, she’s confused for a moment. “Well, I call it home, Mommy and Daddy call it home too. You probably have another home out there in the Roof, but I’ll let you call this home for now,” she explains with a toothless smile, shifting her weight between her feet and playing with one of her messy dark braids.

“My home isn’t on any roof,” Madi has to explain, even though that was the silliest part of the kid’s explanation. “I don’t have a home, haven’t had one for many years. There’s the Rover, of course, but it’s mobile and doesn’t have… Wait…” And then things click and Madi realizes exactly where might she be. “This is not a spaceship, right?”

The little girl’s laugh could lighten up a whole room.

“Of course not!” she says. “This is…” But the child can’t finish her sentence, because the door is opening silently and a woman comes in. First, she focuses on Madi, smiling when she sees her awake and sitting up. But then she focuses on the small figure next to the bed, and her smile swiftly turns into what Madi can only call a typical Mom Stare. Heaven knows she get those from Clarke plenty times a day.

“I supposed you were here,” the woman says to the kid, her calm voice scaring the little child more than if she’d yelled it. “What have I been telling you for the last two days?”

The kid is silent for a moment. Her mother (that’s what she seems) raises an eyebrow and puts a hand on her hip, waiting.

“That I should not bother the Roof girl,” the girl whispers, and the woman nods, trying to fight back a smile.

“And…?”

“That I shouldn’t call her ‘the Roof girl’,” she adds, hiding her face in her small hands, which seems to be enough for her mother, who quickly ushers her out of the room, and closes the door behind her.

“Are you okay, honey?”

Now she’s referring to Madi, and she just nods, wary of her. Even if she has a child, there was no proof this woman isn’t going to hurt her. Apparently, her thoughts were plain on her face, because the woman smiles and carefully sits next to her on the bed.

“I know you don’t trust me,” she starts, “and I understand that. But we only want to help you get better. We’re not going to hurt you, I promise, you’re safe here.”

And the woman’s smile is so warm, so calm, so real, Madi thinks if the woman were to hug her, she’d never let go. Maybe that’s what prompts her to burst out crying, because she knows she’ll do it. And she does, hugging her tightly, mindful of her injuries, trying to comfort her even if she has no idea what set the girl off.

“It will be okay, baby,” she whispers in her hair, and Madi starts to believe it. “But if you don’t tell me what is it, I can’t help you. Have you been alone for these last few years?” she asks, eyeing her carefully, “Or is there anyone else we should be looking for out there?”

“Yes,” Madi sobs, and the woman doesn’t know which question is she answering to. The girl tries to say something else, but is crying so hard she can’t form any words.

“Shh, it’s okay, everything’s okay.”

And with the woman’s strong arms wrapped around her, one of her hands rubbing her back, and Madi’s head pillowed on her chest, her warm voice promptly lulls her back to sleep.

* * *

Madi drifts in and out of a deep sleep for the next few hours. She doesn’t know how many days has she been there, or what time is it, or where are the radio and Clarke’s things. And, most importantly, she still doesn’t know where is she. The little girl had said that wasn’t a spaceship, so maybe they have a base somewhere, and that’s where they’ve taken her. _What if she’s on the moon?_ Floating in the middle of the sky, just as in Clarke’s stories.

But she shakes her head, sitting up in the bed, thinking that would be stupid. She’s in one piece, those people who saved her must not be the same ones that captured Clarke. They’re not wearing those weird suits, and even though it’s _impossible_ , both the woman and the little girl have something familiar, something she can’t quite put her finger on.

For the first time since she first woke up in that bed, she’s feeling rested and not in pain. So she decides to stand up, carefully because she’s still somewhat dizzy and unstable, and look around in the room to find something that might give her a clue of where is she, and who are those people.

That proves to be in vain, because there’s nothing but impersonal decorations and grey metal walls without windows. Just a door, metal too, closed and seemingly locked. Then there’s her bed, the only one in the room, a small mattress and white sheets and blankets with a triangular image on it, one she hasn’t ever seen before.

But no names, no pictures, nothing she recognizes.

What if those are Clarke’s friends, the ones from the Sky? She ponders about it for a moment, hopeful, but discards the idea as soon as she realizes that’s impossible. The woman seemed older than what Clarke said Raven, Bellamy, Monty and the rest were. And she doesn’t think they would’ve had a child up in the Sky, even if she seemed not older than six.

She’s over the table, trying to discern some tiny words carved in its wooden edge, when the door opens again, startling her.

“Sorry!” the same woman than before says, leaving the door open behind her but staying where she is. “We thought you’d be hungry, I brought you a sandwich. It’s not much, but…”

“It’s okay,” Madi says, and grabs it from her hand immediately, biting a big piece and sighing. She hadn’t even realized she was absolutely starving until that moment.

The food is good, even if it tastes weird. She reckons it might have venom, that it might be a trap, but she trusts the woman, and her warm eyes say it's safe, so she keeps eating. When she seats on her bed, her legs hanging over it and not quite reaching the floor, the woman smiles and walks inside the room for the first time since she opened the door, eyeing her carefully to see if it’s okay. When the girl doesn’t say anything, she sits on the single chair on the table and smiles.

“Can I ask you your name?”

She seems tired, her face as warm and kind as before, but there’s bags under her eyes and she really looks like she could fall asleep at any minute.

“I’m Madi.”

“Nice to meet you, Madi,” she smiles, white teeth showing, happy she can trust in her. “My name is Abby kom Wonkru now, but you can’t possibly know how we all ended up being one clan. It’s likely you weren’t even close to Polis when the Bunker closed...”

And it hits Madi, then. The woman’s explanation would’ve been enough if she had’t stopped listening after she said her name, everything clicking in place and making her suddenly realize who exactly is she talking to, and where.

She gapes at the woman named Abby, confused. How on Earth could they have opened the Bunker, if all the ruins of the tower were over it, impossible to move at all? And what’s she doing in there? Do they know she’s a natblida? Do they trust her enough not to kill them all in their sleep? She shakes her head, this woman wouldn’t possibly be afraid of a little girl like her, but she feels something something out of place anyway.

Even stranger is the fact that she’s called Abby, and her warm smile and kind eyes, beautiful brown hair and gentle hands fit to the Abby on Clarke’s stories.

“Abby? Abby Griffin?” Madi asks in a whisper, and her head snaps up, eyes wide and confused.

“Yes,” she says, baffled. “How do you know my name? Have we met before?”  She waits, but the kid doesn’t answer. “I was Skaikru’s leader for a while, maybe you heard about me in Polis,” Abby wonders out loud, but Madi is still silent, trying to organize her thoughts to find a way of explaining everything to the mother of the woman who had cared for her for the past five years. “What clan are you from?” the woman asks again, this time a little softer. “Before Praimfaya, I mean.”

“No clan,” Madi finally says, shaking her head. “My nomon and nontu were expelled from their clans, years before I was born,” and there starts her explanation. “When they discovered I was natblida, they had to run even farther, down south were no clan would be able to reach them.” Madi is lost in her thoughts, but she thinks it’s the only way to start telling Abby her story, to tell her Clarke is alive… To tell her they had to save her. “When the big war started, we moved back up north, where Floukru gave us shelter. We…” she falters, “Luna didn’t know I was natblida, even though Noni was sure she’d never say to the scouts anything about me. And then people started falling sick, out of nowhere. Nomi died, and when the big sickness came few years later, Noni died with everyone else. I hid on Luna’s boat, then ran away when we hit ground. I was hidden in the forest when the Heat came, burning everything around me.”

Abby’s eyes are wide, she cannot possibly be more surprised and consternated. She’s listening to a little girl that survived Praimfaya out there, something she thought impossible, and can’t help but wonder if she knows about more people that may have survived as well. But another part of her just wants to cry, to wrap the girl in her arms and weep with her for everything she’s lost out there, for the childhood she missed.

“For quite a long time, I was alone,” Madi continues, and Abby's heart keeps breaking little by little. “I was small, didn’t know much about hunting or fishing yet, but when I was well enough from my burns to walk again, I found a small town with lots of food…” She trails off, and Abby shudders: she can only imagine the sight the girl had encountered there. She really needs to hug her now, comfort her in her arms and tell her everything’s fine now, but she can’t bring herself to do it yet. Madi needs her space, needs to tell her story alone, and then maybe she’ll try to look for comfort the same way she did when she first woke up. So Abby keeps still in her place.

“Did you find someone out there?” she asks carefully, trying to imagine what her answer will be. Every single possibility on her mind is worse than the other, and she doesn’t really know what she’s expecting Madi to answer… But she never saw her next words coming.

“An angel,” Madi says, a smile blooming on her face, leaving Abby speechless. “All pale skin and blonde hair, a wild look in her eyes which scared me at first…” the girl giggles. “She was bleeding, a little, right over her forehead. And it was black. I was too afraid to talk, thinking she’d kill me and eat me for dinner… So I ran my knife over the palm of my hand,” she shows Abby the old faded scar, then, making her tear up at the thought of tiny five-year-old Madi, “and showed her. _Look, I’m black-blooded too_. And so she started crying.”

Abby is gaping, tears falling down her cheeks at an alarming rate, shaking hands trying to reach out for Madi. She sits on the bed cautiously, and the girl imperceptibly leans towards her when Abby touches her cheeks, amazed, confused, at a loss of words. Every possible feeling passing through her and destroying what she had thought life was like for the last six years.

An _angel_. Pale, blonde, _with black blood._ She doubts it’s all a giant coincidence. It can’t be. And she’s either going crazy or...

“You knew who I was,” Abby says, bewildered, both a question and a statement, “because _she told you._ She told you about me, about us, about the kids up in the Ark…” she’s openly sobbing, and Madi puts one of her hands over hers, still on her cheeks, smiling encouragingly. “She told you about them,” and it’s not a question this time, “because she was never up there. She survived on Earth all this time… She was with you.”

Madi’s skin is warm under Abby’s hands, and she doesn’t want to let go yet. She’s feeling closer to her daughter for some reason, seeing the living proof of her survival, a girl she found when he couldn’t have been more than six, and raised her into the teenager she’s turning. It hits her hard, falling forward and hugging Madi with all her might, one of her hands cradling the back of her head, face buried on the girl’s hair.

“She missed you,” Madi says, and Abby starts sobbing even harder. “She told me your story,” and when she feels the woman tense in her arms, Madi continues with a gentler voice, “the story of the Queen of the Sky. She was magical, healing everyone with the simplest touch. But the air was becoming toxic, and her King wanted to tell the people. The Queen was afraid of their reaction, afraid of scaring parents and children into doing things they’d regret later. She was terrified, because she knew not all of them had hope.”

Madi thinks she can feel Abby smiling lightly against her shoulder, and tries to back away a little so she can see her face. Clarke had told her her mother was beautiful, but she had never imagined she was actually as stunning and graceful as a Queen.

“But the magic was slowly dying too, and the Queen’s beloved King died before he was able to tell anyone about it. And then, for good measure, they captured their only child, a Princess that spent almost a year alone in a cell among the stars, counting the days until her eighteenth birthday, when she should either be free again, or forever float in the sky with her father.”

The girl waits a moment, eyeing Abby and making sure it’s not too much. Clarke had cried a river the first time she had told her the story, and even though Madi loved it, it was obvious how painful it was for both mother and daughter now.

“But her eighteenth birthday hadn't came yet, when the Queen went into the Princess’ cell and told her she had to save her people. The toxic air was making kids sick, and if the Queen’s magic didn’t come back soon, every one of them would die. The Princess was scared, but her mother had hope. She was the smartest woman on the Kingdom, and she had planned every detail with great care. A group of kids, delinquents locked up in cells like the Princess’, should be sent out of the Kingdom, down to the trees and rivers. It was a dangerous journey, but the Queen trusted they would do a good job, and so they went.”

Madi stops, suddenly aware the next part of the story involves the Queen and her daughter fighting over the King's punishment and things the mother had kept to herself in order to protect her. But Abby knows, and smiles anyway, stroking the kid’s cheek, her heart bursting with love for a child she had just met, and in a few minutes had mended her broken heart.

“Anyway,” the decides to continue, lightly, “the Queen and her Knight came to the forest, blah blah blah, they defeated the Mountain Monsters, blah blah blah, they defeated the Red Queen, blah blah blah. And then they lived happily ever after.”

“And the Princess?” Abby asks, wary now of Madi’s answer. Where was Clarke, if the girl had been found passed out and bleeding on the border of the city? What had happened to her?

“The Princess sacrificed herself to help her friends go back to the castle on the stars, thinking she would die among the trees on fire…”

“But she survived.”

“But she survived,” Madi agrees, “and with her survived a little girl. She took care of her, taught her how to hunt, build fires and even speak a new language. She was the mother the girl hadn’t had for the longest time, and every night before going to sleep, she told her a story. But the girl’s favorite was this one, the one where the Queen of the Sky saved everyone with her magic, fell in love with her Knight, and patiently waits in her castle below the forest for the Princess to save her again.”

There’s silence for a few minutes, Abby still holding her close, trying to process all the things she had told her. Clarke, taking a young child under her wing and raising her for the past five years. Her own daughter, willing to sacrifice herself so that her friends would live. Waiting, just as she had waited up on the Sky Box, for the day where she could see her mother again.

“And where’s the Princess now?” Abby has to ask, because all the possible answers have been eating away at her ever since Madi started her story, and she cannot handle the uncertainty anymore.

Madi sighs, bracing herself for the thing she has to tell, the story she has to explain for the first time.

“The Princess waited a long time for her friends to come back and help her save the Queen. But years came and went by, and nothing happened: the moving star was still on the sky, and worry was consuming her. One morning, while the little girl was asleep, she saw a ship coming down. She got excited: after six years, her friends were coming back to save their people. But then the little girl woke up, and saw the ship wasn’t the same of the Princess’ stories. It was bigger, and overall scarier, than Vesta IV was supposed to be. Monsters came out of it, giant monsters with weird suits and plenty of questions the Princess’ wasn’t willing to answer. So they took her. She begged them for the little girl’s life, and they let her live, not before hurting her enough that she passed out on the ground.”

Abby’s eyes are dark with fear. She had known something like that had happened, dreaming night after night terrible things happening to her daughter either up on space, or down on Earth. Monsters under the bed, monsters on the Sky, on the Ground, monsters everywhere never leaving her alone. Clarke, as it seemed, was never not in danger, and while Abby is worried, heart thumping on her throat, she knows deep down her daughter will be okay.

“The little girl wanted to go find the Queen,” Madi continues, her chin to her chest, too shy to look at Abby now, “so that when she was rescued from her buried castle, she’d help her save the Princess. But the Queen found the girl before the girl could find her, and she took her to her castle,” the kid’s words seem like a question now, and Abby nods. “She let her rest and heal enough so that, when she heard her story, both would run outside and save the Princess, together.”

Abby is at a loss of words, not knowing whether to run out of the door looking for her daughter, or stay listening to Madi’s stories all day long. But she knows, rationally, that she shouldn’t do either, and tries to calm herself enough so that she’ll be able to speak without starting to sob again.

“They… They took her, you said,” Abby states, half a question again, and all of a sudden it’s not the Princess’ story anymore. “People came down on a ship and took Clarke, left you there, and for some reason cleaned the tower’s ruins and made it possible for us to open the bunker’s door.”

Madi hadn’t known that part of the story, and looks at Abby in wonder. That must have to be Clarke’s doing, she thinks, and says as much. She must have reached an agreement with the strange people, saving her people’s lives in exchange of… What? What could they possibly want that Clarke had?

“I don’t know,” Abby says helplessly, standing from the bed and making her way to the table, where a small radio was sitting, “but we’re gonna find out where she is and who they are, and we’re doing it now.”

She’s determined, a bright look in her eyes that states both how scared and desperate she is.

“I’m calling Marcus, and then…” she suddenly stops, turning towards the door and sighing heavily. “Eden Vera Kane! What did I tell you about eavesdropping?” Abby’s tone startles Madi, who just now can see the little girl hiding behind the door, crouched on the floor, looking at them with wide eyes.

“I want to help save sissy, too!” she pleads, ignoring her mother’s telling off, and then…

“Clarke never mentioned a sister.”

Abby has to chuckle at that, confusing little Eden. Everything on this scenario feels out of place, but at the same time it’s alright, as if all their lives were leading to that exact moment. She and Clarke, separated for six years without knowing about each other, but both mothering girls around the exact same time. Eden, her youngest daughter, now had a sister _and_ a niece. And Madi, who had to grow up all of a sudden after her parents had died, had found herself a new family Abby was sure she’d enjoy.

And while she was walking with the girls down the dark hallways looking for Marcus and Octavia, she couldn’t help but think in her own childhood. Small quarters and families of three was all she ever knew. And now she had a big family of her own: two daughters, a stepdaughter, plenty of adopted children scattered here and there, and - shit, an almost teenaged granddaughter.

 _You shouldn’t be feeling like this_ , Abby chides herself, _this freaking happy_. But even when they were all running to save Clarke once again, she couldn’t help but think this was what normalcy in her family looked like. This is what their lives have been like since they set a foot on the ground.

And Abby wouldn’t change that for the world. Not now, not ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel this was awful: I've been awake for almost 24hs and I didn't dare to proof-read this thing. I'm just saying this is certainly full of mistakes of all types, shapes and colors.


	6. so near grows death to life, whate'er death is

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 6: Favorite character trait. 
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING. Mentions of abortion. 
> 
> I'm feeling really troubled with what I just wrote and how it came out, so I'm really sorry if it doesn't even make sense.
> 
> Oh, and just a little explanation that I didn’t see fit to include in the writing. I’ve read people writing about Skaikru having Clarke, Bellamy’s and the rest of spots free because they didn’t come back. But I’m sure when they realized they weren’t going, they took other people inside. (*screaming DAVID MILLER at the top of my lungs*). Anyway, that’s it. They have their hundred people inside, and… Let’s get to the story. Pay attention again to the days after Praimfaya! Jo.-

**One week and five days after Praimfaya.**

The days after Abby found out she was, in fact, pregnant and not dying at all, were marked by a surprisingly sudden improvement in her health. She’s still dizzy, and morning-sickness is actually worse in the afternoons, but overall she’s feeling better, she’s feeling _alive._ She was discharged from Medical soon after she started walking without help again, and immediately moved into Marcus’ quarters, where a king-sized bed and a warm body waited for her.

“You better put the baby’s crib on the far wall over there,” Octavia says the minute she comes into the room, noticing the bed Abby’s sitting on is located next to the wall her own quarters share with theirs. “I have absolutely no intention of staying up at night listening to an infant screaming like a banshee.” But her words are harmless, and her usual scowl is replaced with a smile, so everything is okay.

What’s not quite all right is the thing Indra says next, eyeing Marcus for his reaction and silently praying that Octavia won’t mess this up.

“They’ll riot.”

Silence.

“Who will?” Abby finally asks after a few moments, looking between the three of them and trying to discern if Marcus knew beforehand and didn’t tell her. But considering his —adorably— confused expression, she thinks both of them are finding out about it at the same time.

“Everyone. All of the clans,” Octavia explains sullenly, her left hand twitching with what Abby can only thing is fierce desire to drive a sword through someone’s heart. _It’s been a while, after all_ , she thinks gloomily, fighting a tiny smile back. “If they find out Skaikru will have a hundred _and one_ people inside this bunker, they’ll fight for everyone they lost out there because of the hundred-people limit.”

“But what good will it do?” Marcus wonders, a little stupidly. “Abby’s already pregnant, it’s not like we could’ve known and left the baby outside before the doors closed.”

The meaning of his words are plain for everyone but himself, unable to realize the dark truth of what life here — _and back on the Ark,_ Abby thinks— is like.

“But the baby hasn’t been born yet,” Indra says slowly, looking at him pointedly, trying to avoid having to say the words all of them are dreading now.

Abby is paralyzed with fear, shivers running up her spine, her heart thumping hard against her chest. Back in the Ark, as Chief of Medical, she had no chance but to follow the law, performing an abortion on every woman gotten pregnant without explicit authorization of the government. It had been their only choice, something neither she as a doctor or her patients as women could avoid.

Some went willingly, both young and old women who had no desire to face such a punishment for something they had no power over, not wanting to leave the children they already had to grow without a mother; even women who didn’t want to be mothers at all.

But most of them begged her, and some even fought, until Abby had no option other than to sedate them completely and do what she needed to do. She knows she _had_ to, she didn’t have a choice. As a woman and as a doctor, she knows contraceptive chips weren’t perfect, and some of them failed: it wasn’t the women’s fault, but they had no power to control its consequences, either. She clearly understood back then, but it didn’t make it hurt any less, and it sure doesn’t now. Taking away their free will, just like ALIE had done.

She still vividly remembers —and dreams about it, sometimes— the exact day, three years after Clarke’s birth, when it suddenly dawned on her that her period was two whole months late. The fear coursing through her is something she’ll never be able to take out of her mind. She clearly recalls sitting on her tiny bathroom’s cold floor, shaking and crying and cursing the universe for what it was going to make her go through.

She hadn’t had any desire of having more than one child when she was young, she had never even thought about it before getting married. But Jake… Her sweet caring husband, who loved children more than anything in the world, had wondered many times late in bed what would life be like if they were allowed to have a big family.

Two days went by, not daring to get a blood test done, thinking of how she would have to tell Jake she was pregnant, but that they wouldn’t ever see their baby’s face, breaking his heart in the process. It was one thing to know you didn’t have any chance of having something you wanted, but another altogether was getting a glimpse of what you wholeheartedly desired, and then getting it snatched away before you could even enjoy it.

She was also dreading to ask her newest interns to perform a procedure which would take away from her a tiny forming life, one that could’ve been just like Clarke. But it was the law, and she wasn’t prepared to ignore it back then. She was too young, too afraid to do anything but what she was supposed to do.

So when the blood test came positive, as she had fearfully expected, she begged a heart-broken Jake to come hold her hand while everything was being done. And later, that same night, she thought while buried in his arms that she’d never be able to know a pain much greater than that. Blood of her blood had been taken away from her, endless possibilities for a life that would never be able to live at all.

But it was what had to happen, and that’s the only thing that allowed her to be able to sleep at night. It wasn’t her own fault as a woman, nor as a doctor or part of the government in a place with no other option but to strictly control their population.

Now she thinks the universe must be laughing at her, because it’s the Ark all over again. Locked up again in a metal structure with nothing to do but wait for Earth to be survivable again, pregnant with a child that has no place where to live. But she’s not twenty-five anymore, she’s not the same young, scared Abby she once was. Back then, she had a small daughter to care for, a job she had to maintain, a husband who needed her. And now? Now she can risk doing the thing she hadn’t dared to do in the past. She still has a daughter, some sort of a job, and a newly-found love that helped create the life she’s growing now.

But she has nothing to lose if she fights back, because what will be lost if she doesn’t is everything she has.

* * *

“They can’t force her to do anything,” Marcus insists, trying to convince himself of his own words. “She’s the doctor here.” But all three women ignore him.

“If you don’t hide the pregnancy, they’ll _kill_ you.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to hide anything when I’m eight months pregnant and unable to see my own feet,” Abby says dryly, pushing back the overwhelming terror she’s feeling. She breathes deeply, tries to calm herself so that she doesn’t have an anxiety attack right then. That can wait.

“You better think about something,” spats Indra, firm in her place and ignoring Marcus’ wide eyes, “because if you aren’t able to hide a pregnancy, then how do you think you’ll be able to hide the child when it’s born?”

“Indra…”

“I won’t hide a kid between these four walls for five whole years,” Abby interrupts whatever Marcus was going to say, a determined look in her eyes. She’s not condemning her child to such a life, the same one that...

“I’m sure my mother didn’t want to hide her daughter under the floor for sixteen years, either, but she had no other choice,” Octavia interrupts her thoughts, a little curtly and not meaning any harm, but her words are like tiny knives digging into their souls.

For Abby, it hurts that much because she had known about Aurora, and she had done absolutely nothing at all. She hadn’t dared, the moment she found out the woman was seven months pregnant, to kill an already-formed baby. So she ignored it, and secretly prayed at night for the universe to help Aurora, and her son —just a few years older than Clarke—, to go through it safely. She promised herself she’d do everything in her power to help the kid once Aurora’s baby was born, when his mother were discovered. Because in Abby’s mind, there was no chance she’d be able to hide it for long. She had assumed that was what Aurora’s plan was: her own life in exchange of her new baby. The boy would miss her, yes, and it broke Abby’s heart, but she knew there was no other way. Not in the Ark.

And she was wrong, of course. Months went by, even years, and Aurora was still there, taking her son to regular medical controls, a little paler than usual sometimes, a malnourished creature with sad dark eyes. Abby wondered, but never dared to pry. It wasn’t her business, and she wasn’t going to be the one to condemn anyone to death. That was not who she was.

For Marcus, though, it’s a whole different thing. He still feels guilty for so many reasons, he often wonders if it was him who should’ve gotten the punishment instead of Aurora. He hadn’t known, of course, the way she was involved with plenty of guardsmen. But he had realized she was exchanging something in return for extra rations — for his son, tiny little thing, he presumed.

He had grown up with Aurora living next-door. If Marcus closes his eyes, he still can see her; a small, energetic child, always wearing that bright-red headband contrasting with her dark hair and pale skin. She had been orphaned when she was just fifteen, and Vera used to help her with her homework at nights. Sometimes, he remembers going back home after Guard training only to find her passed out on his mother’s couch, neither of them daring to wake her up and tell her she had to go back to her empty quarters.

But then she had stopped going to Vera’s, and not many weeks later, stopped going to school altogether. Mrs. Sydney had been the one, a few doors away from Aurora’s quarters, to finally realize that the teenager was pregnant, taking her by force to Medical, where a consternated and newly-graduated Dr. Walters had to confirm her the not-so-happy news.

Abby will never be able to take out of her mind the image of Aurora’s pale face, crying while holding her shaking hands after Abby told her she was a whole month too late for her to do anything about it.

“I’m not saying I think you should,” Octavia continues, bringing them back to the present, “I’d never…”

“You’re their leader,” Marcus interrupts her briskly, looking at the girl as if she were the only life-boat and he was about to sink, “maybe you could…” But Indra’s glare cuts his words, and Abby can’t believe he had actually dared to speak them at all.

“Do you really think Heda will use her power for personal benefit?” she asks brusquely, part of her wishing her friend wouldn’t have to be in that situation.

“Of course not,” he says, eyes fixed on the ground, as if ashamed he ever had that thought, “I didn’t…”

“Gosh.” Now it’s time for Octavia to interrupt, rolling her eyes hard, warmth hidden somewhere beneath the detached coldness in them. “Of course I _can,_ Kane,” she spats, ignoring Indra’s stern and disapproving look, glancing between him and Abby, pondering her next words. “It’s a baby, for fuck’s sake. I didn’t spend fifteen years of my life hidden under the floor in a tiny room for me to force others to do the same. I…” she falters, ashamed of the tears in her eyes, blinking them off before anyone can realize they’re there, but failing spectacularly. “I know how it feels.”

“But we have time,” Abby says, her voice hoarse, trying her damned hardest not to crumble in front of the two women. “I can keep working up to the moment I start to show… Until then, we have time to think about something.”

 

* * *

 

**Four weeks and six days after Praimfaya.**

Abby wakes up alone in her room. Marcus had taken the night shift, and should be coming home in a few hours, just in time to kiss Abby goodbye before she walked to Medical for the day. It’s still early, just four in the morning, which means she had slept just two or three hours before waking up again. And she’s tired, God, she’s tired and aching all over: this pregnancy isn’t even halfway there and Abby doesn’t think she’ll be able to do it for much longer.

So she cries. It’s dark, and under the covers Abby feels protected, as if she was being hugged, as if there was someone there comforting her. She just _can’t_ cry about it in front of Marcus, can’t let him comfort her about that. She doesn’t deserve it, she has to suffer alone. So this is her time.

What hurts even more than her joints is her heart, almost about to break for good, all its pieces scattered inside her chest and making it hard for her to breathe.

She is thinking about things she shouldn’t, things she ought to feel guilty about, for the most part of this pregnancy. And she absolutely cannot tell Marcus any of it. It’s selfish, it would break his heart too, and that’s something she’d go to Hell and back in order to avoid. She already saw Jake’s heart breaking once, she couldn't handle such thing again.

But still, her brain keeps betraying her night after night.

Sometimes, it’s the Ark all over again, white walls and a cold bed under her back, legs lifted and someone working between them, showing her the tiny bloodied creature they took away from her with a crooked smile. But she doesn’t wake up immediately, and that’s the worst part of it. She knows she’d dreaming, she knows none of it is real —it hadn’t happened that way—, but can’t seem to make herself wake up.

And the dream continues. Sometimes, she tries to run away from Medical and ends up on the forest, near the place where Marcus had planted Vera’s tree. It’s always dark when she’s outside, and it hurts that even in her dreams she can’t see the sky above her head or feel the sun on her skin. More often than not, she can see a baby there, a full-term newborn crying and screaming under the small tree, all red cheeks and chubby legs kicking around. In the dream, she doesn’t do anything but stare at the infant, standing there barefoot and naked, waiting… Waiting for something she doesn’t even know what it is.

When the baby isn’t there, wailing under the tree, she can only see the whole forest catching fire. She thinks that’s what things must have looked like when Praimfaya hit, all yellow and orange and brown, endless heat and blackening nature.

But the Eden tree is always there, immune to disaster, immune to the flames and the wind and her own feet when she feels herself come closer and kick it. Once, twice, ten, fifty times until she’s shaking and tired, but the tree is still there, intact, unmoving, like her efforts while kicking and trying to bring it down had been in vain.

She still doesn’t know why she does it, why her dream-self feels the need to destroy such a sacred part of the Ark’s life and Marcus’ memories. But nevertheless she can’t help hating herself for it.

So she can’t tell him, he can never know what she’s dreaming about at nights. When she erases Jake’s from her worst nightmares about the Ark, when she want to destroy Marcus’ only thing left from his mother… When she sees a tiny baby crying in the middle of the forest and doesn’t dare pick them up.

What kind of mother will she be to this new baby, she thinks. She was clearly happy when she found out she was pregnant, but there’s a voice in her head, hidden deep inside, that tells her with an annoyingly crisp tone that she was only relieved _because it meant that she wasn’t dying._

And she knows it isn’t true, God, she knows, but she can’t help thinking maybe her unconscious is trying to tell her something, is trying to make her realize what a terrible person she still is, how she doesn’t deserve to live after everything she’s done.

But she’s worried, too, because even though she loves this baby with her entire being, she can’t help hating being pregnant. Everything hurts a hundred times more than her pregnancy with Clarke, and when she thinks of the baby that could’ve been, and the opportunity she’s having now, at forty-three no less, she bursts out crying every single time.

Marcus knows, of course he does, but it makes her feel even worse when she cries and he takes it all the wrong way. She had to spend days trying to convince him this baby wasn’t a copy of Clarke for her, the daughter she wouldn’t see for five years. But the moment she told her about the baby the Ark had taken away from her, something had broken and she still wasn’t sure how to fix it.

That night, he let her cry on his shoulder for hours in the end, grieving now for all she hadn’t been able to grieve on the Ark, when two days after the intervention she was working again, being forced to fake a smile and be the same cheery Abby she had always been. But even though he understood her and just wanted her to feel better, cradling her to his chest and whispering words of comfort in her ear, he couldn’t get out of his head that this pregnancy was making Abby suffer.

“If you… If I hadn’t gotten you pregnant,” he starts saying one night, a half-asleep Abby curled up around his back, her head between his shoulderblades and her left arm around his chest, “you wouldn’t be feeling like this. And I’m sorry, love, I’m so very sorry. I… I understand how it feels, missing him,” he falters, and Abby’s heart skips a beat, “and I get that you probably think this is what you should be living with him. The child he had always wanted, the baby that couldn’t had been before…”

And Abby couldn’t do anything but push him away from her and stand up, feeling nauseous and cold all over at the thought of Marcus feeling she was thinking about her dead husband and a baby she never had, while she was with him, pregnant with his child, loving them both every day a little more.

Three weeks was what it took for her to finally make him understand that it wasn’t like that, and by the end of it, after endless nights of late discussions and tears and nightmares, she was exhausted. And then Marcus had started taking the night shifts, and she was alone in bed, and the nightmares had started to get even worse.

So, what kind of mother would she be to this baby, if it took her ages to convince their father that she loved them, if she couldn’t help but hate the state she was in, if she couldn’t even bring them into a world where they would be safe?

Out of fear, they still hadn’t told anyone, not even the people they cared about. Abby had been hiding her not-so-tiny-anymore bump under loose clothing and her desk, doing paperwork all day and just spoken interviews with whoever had a doubt about their health.

But today, she notices as she starts dressing for the day, her dried tears on her cheeks, must be the day.

The day her jeans doesn’t button up anymore, the day she can visibly see her swollen stomach under the giant shirt Marcus had given her to sleep a few weeks ago. And so she starts crying again. She sits on the bed and weeps until she has no tears left, because when she had told Octavia they still had time, she had never thought about the day that time would finally run out.

 

* * *

 

 **Six weeks and two days after Praimfaya**.

“They know.”

Abby’s heart leaps in her chest, waking up from a restless sleep to see Octavia standing on her door, her battle armor on, a stricken look in her face. She doesn’t even have to ask what does she mean. This is it.

“How?” is the only thing she manages to mutter, breathless, her heart racing while she tries to stand up, baby moving inside her, as if reminding her they were there, that they wanted to live.

“You’ve spent more than ten days hidden in your room, Abby,” the girl says, rolling her eyes, a little exasperated. “People aren’t idiots… Well, not all of them,” she adds, but Abby can’t even manage a hint of a smile. “They can see something’s going on. And they can all realize their main healer wasn’t always healthy to begin with. You spent almost a week in Medical when the bunker first closed… It was a matter of time til someone put two and two together…” she stops for a second, and adds hastily, “I’m sorry.”

“What…” Abby falters. “What can we do?” She doesn’t ask _if_ they can do anything because she really doesn’t want to ever face that probability.

“Right now? Keep Kane’s ass safe… He’s okay,” Octavia rushes to say, when Abby’s expression shifts into anguished worry, “for now. A group attacked him when he was alone in his shift, tried to shocklash him in the stomach… He’s better now: has a nasty cut on the forehead where a Trishanakru woman literally lunged at him with a knife, but nothing else.”

“And you say he’s okay?” Abby cries, running her hands up and down her own arms. “Where is he? Who’s taking care of him? What will you do with those people?”  While she speaks, she starts getting dressed, putting a sweater over Marcus’ shirt, and her boots on without socks, in her rush to get to the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Octavia asks with a raised eyebrow, standing between the door and Abby, not letting her go any further. “He’s okay, I just told you. Dad Miller and Costa have explicit orders of not letting anyone into Medical, under any circumstance,” she explains, rolling her eyes a little, but Abby can see she is worried under that pretense of annoyment. “They’re all in a cell, now. Indra’s warriors are keeping them there. They’re not to be out until I decide to…” And she leaves unsaid the words Abby knows to be true: she isn’t going to decide to let them free until the child is born and safely away from them. Which, in the Bunker, would not be more than a few meters away. And that supposes a problem no one knows how to solve.

But neither of them say anything about it. They had too many problems there and then to be worrying even more about what could happen in the future.

“You can’t possibly expect me to sit still in this room,” Abby starts, fuming, “when Marcus is in _Medical_ of all places, hurt and with people wanting to kill him.”

Octavia is silent for a few moments, trying to find the right words to say the thing she needed to say next. But she wasn’t good with words, she never had been, and she hadn’t ever learnt how to be subtle at all, so she threw everything out of the window and look at Abby right in the eye.

“It’s not him they’re trying to hurt,” she explains, something weird in her voice, like those were the words she had never wanted to say out loud, but Abby had left her with no other choice, “it’s you.” Silence. “He’s just collateral damage,” she adds, and Abby hangs her head to her chest, left hand over her swollen belly and tears stinging her eyes. “If you put a foot outside of here, Kane won’t matter anymore. They’re angry, and it’s you, it’s the baby _you’re_ carrying, who they want.”

Abby knew that already, Marcus knew it too, everyone had been thinking about it since the first time Abby was released from Medical and both Octavia and Indra had went to talk to them. But neither of them had put that reality into words yet, and when finally spoken they hurt even more than Abby dares to admit.

And what hurts even more, startling her so badly that for a minute she can’t even look Octavia in the eye, ashamed that she hadn’t thought it before, was the simple truth of what Wonkru _is_ in essence.

Because she had thought about all of it in terms of what the Ark had been: a controlled, organized government controlling population and ensuring with the appropriate procedures that there wasn’t going to be a baby boom anytime soon. Her being forced to stop a six-week pregnancy because there was no place, no oxygen, no food or water for a second life to grow within her.

But it’s different now, and she feels like an idiot, because she hadn’t even grasped the reality in front of her: that despite all the similarities, life in the bunker is a far cry from what the Ark was.

Now there’s no gentle nurse and no young intern smiling anxiously at their doctor, lying on a cot, her shaky legs open, wrapping her husband’s hand so tightly they all thought he’d be the one to pass out. Now, there’s no comforting words and no “it will be okay, don’t worry, it had to be this way”.

Back then, there hadn’t been hope: just something that had to be done, no other option to consider. But now, now there’s the whole future of this child that Abby and Marcus dared to imagine together, late at night, hand in hand. Now, they know for sure they’ll be able to see the sky and the trees and the birds once again in a few years, they know their child will have a chance to see what they had never expected to when they were growing up.

In the bunker there’s also a mob of angry grounders, who wouldn’t even hesitate before grabbing a shock baton and hitting Skaikru’s Chancellor in the middle of a calm shift, running a knife on his face before, presumably, trying to sink it into his chest or throat or stomach until he was gasping and bleeding and dying alone on the hall. And their hands wouldn’t waver either if they ever found Abby outside of her room, not caring if she was with Heda by her side, stabbing her with whatever rusty metal sword they had, over and over again until there was no chance her kid would survive.

It was angry, it was violent, and it _wasn’t_ the law. But now, a far cry from what had happened on the Ark, they have a chance. They have hope.

Now, Abby will fight for it even if it’s the last thing she does.

 

* * *

 

**Five weeks and one day after Praimfaya.**

Abby hasn’t left her room since Octavia first came in to tell her Marcus had been attacked. Time is passing as slow as ever, torturing her every minute of every day. In the mornings, she wakes up shaking and sweaty, the last remnants of the nightmare she’d had still reeling on her mind. At nights, she dreads going back to sleep knowing where she’ll end up at.

There’s always someone there with her, even if that person wasn’t who she needs the most. Octavia, mostly, under the pretense of being Heda, someone not many would dare to fight — even if Abby knew better.

Sometimes it is Niylah, that sweet girl that cooks for her and tells her stories about how her mother used to deliver babies in her village, comparing notes with her about what birthing on the Ark had been like. Others it’s Indra, sitting tightly on a chair by the door, sword _and_ gun in hand, not crossing a single word with Abby unless it was strictly necessary. And even though it made her uncomfortable at the beginning, she now appreciates the silence and the time to think, while still having someone there with her.

“I can’t do this anymore,” she says one night, getting ready for bed, the normalcy of it all striking her hard. “I shouldn’t be hiding here, I should be with Marcus.”

It was Nate Miller, this time, who has taken the babysitting shift. He sighs a little, rolling his eyes, but Abby knows he thinks just like her. She had known the boy literally since the minute he was born, crying his lungs out when Abby put him in his mother’s chest, an adorable chubby little thing that wouldn’t stop screaming for more than five minutes at a time. She worked besides him trying to save Marcus’ life from Pike, she knows what he’s willing to do and risk, and she knows what he wants to do now. For Marcus, for her, for his dad, for...

“Eric warned me,” the boy starts, looking at her with a hint of amusement, “that you would try.” Abby rolls her eyes, and he laughs. “I just told him I knew… I was waiting for you to bring it up.”

“I haven’t said a word,” she says, a little defensively, but she can’t deny the thing he isn’t saying but they both know to be true.

“Not yet,” Nathan adds, and Abby has to smile when he does, despite the situation. “But when you do, I’m letting you know that I’ll help you.”

She just sits on the bed, with Marcus’ shirt and a pair of old cotton pants on, and thinks for a long, long time.

Abby has no idea of what to do, she doesn’t have a plan. She is almost four months pregnant and has a fierce desire to protect this child, to give them all the opportunities she never thought she would have. She knows she would fight every single Grounder in there, without a hint of a doubt, if that meant her child would be safe, be it now or when they’re a stubborn eighteen-year-old with the eyes of their father.

“There’s two-thousand, two-hundred and one people on this place.” Nathan’s voice, after so many minutes in silence in the dark, startles her a little. She doesn’t know how he realized she wasn’t sleeping, but doesn’t dare to interrupt him now. “Or at least there will be in a few months. But when you sent us down to the ground,” he starts to explain, and Abby is relieved to find no accusation in his tone, “we were supposed to be a hundred, but ended up being a hundred and one.”

“It was different,” she says, her voice hoarse, “because there was room on Earth. Even though we didn’t know if it was survivable or not, there was hope you’d all find a way to live and thrive and, afterwards, take everyone else down.”

“And now,” Nate completes what she wanted to say, agreeing, “we’re all crammed up on this tiny shitty place, with oxygen enough for an exact amount of people living at the same time, and an extremely-rationed diet we’ll have to follow for the next five years. I know it’s different, Doc,” and he’s talking to her as if she were a child, “but we don’t have to be a hundred and one… We weren’t when we first arrive, ya’know? Two idiots died first, because of Collins. Who says a thing like that won’t happen before the kid is born?”

“I… We can’t possibly convince anyone with that argument, Nathan,” she says, shaking her head a little, wholeheartedly wanting to trust his words would be her way out. “We cannot be sure anyone is going to die, and if for some reason they wait until they’re born, and no one has died by then, they’ll kill the baby. You know they will.” Abby is desperate, the cold pain of her soul cracking open worse than ever.

“We don’t have to _wait_ to be sure someone dies,” he speaks slowly, suggesting something Abby wishes she’s getting wrong, but she knows Nate well enough to clearly see what he means. “We should _do_ something. It’s not like we haven’t done far worse things for less. And it’s not like we don’t have an excuse. Those fuckers tried to kill Kane, that sexy broad forehead of his now scarred because of them. Isn’t that enough reason to act?”

Abby knows he’s trying to lighten the mood a little, in the middle of the dark thing he’s actually saying, but she cannot bring herself to do anything but sink into the mattress and cry.

If she hadn’t considered his words, maybe she wouldn’t be feeling like that. But since the minute he implied killing someone was the solution, her heart had started beating with something akin to hope again. To certainty, to a safe future for them and their child.

But she can’t. _Oh, no, no, Abby, stop it, you can’t, no,_ she thinks, tears falling freely down her cheeks, because it’s Jake, and the Hundred, and Callie, and Raven’s pod, and Finn Collins, and Mount Weather, and ALIE, and Becca’s lab all over again.

_If I take a life to find a cure, does that make me a murderer?_

That had been a whole different thing. Back then, they were talking about saving the whole world, finding a solution for all of them to live. But now she was thinking about just one life, her child’s, and it scares her how easily she can think about murdering someone if it is for the baby’s sake.

It had always been like this with Clarke, and _she’s surprised she’s even surprised_ that she already feels the same way with this baby. She’d do anything, everything for her children. She’d fight until her last breath for the people she loves, for what she thinks is right.

But despite that determination, that strong need to keep her family safe, she still can see herself, gun in hand, ready to shoot when Clarke was connected to Ontari’s blood. And she had done it, she had killed a man in order to protect her daughter. It had been her, consciously and directly, the one who had taken a man’s life and never thought again about it. Because she knew neither of them would be here today if she hadn’t.

That fact still doesn’t make her feel better about it, and it probably never will. The guilt keeps killing her little by little, and she isn’t sure if she’d be able to survive doing something like that again.

How much different can that be from killing someone to ensure her baby’s protection? A lot, she thinks. Unless someone threatens her directly, she won’t ever be able to sentence anyone to death just because. And she says as much to Nathan, whispering in the dark and hoping a miracle solution comes out of nowhere.

“You don’t have to,” he says, and she knows if she opened her eyes there would be warmth in his.

Abby’s hating herself for everything she’s thinking, for every troubling decision she knows she’ll have to make when the morning comes. But while she drifts off to sleep, she’s comforted by the fact that she’s not alone. She’ll never be alone, and despite whatever the future holds, she knows she can count on every single one of them to take her hand and push her into saving herself once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't stop crying while writing this. I love Abby Griffin with my whole being, and can’t possibly decide just one favorite characteristic. But her resilience always amazed me: a woman who went through so much, and still is determined to do her best, for her and for the people she loves... Even after thinking she didn’t deserve to live, which is something I wish they’d explore next season.
> 
> I love her being as stubborn as she is, a Slytherin at heart. She’s mostly controlled by her feelings and impulses, but is an intelligent woman-of-science at the same time, so every single reckless decision she may take is determined by an extreme amount of thinking through in very little time. And she’s resourceful, a great leader and an amazing person. I wish people would start appreciating her for more than just “being a great mother”. She /is/ a great mother because of all those amazing things she's made of. Abby is more than just Clarke’s mom, more than just a doctor, more than Marcus' love interest, and it’s about time people start seeing that. 
> 
> (A little disclaimer. Re-reading this I noticed it could all be perceived as a “pro-life” statement from me, which is the farthest thing I intended for this fic - mainly because I’m not. I know it should be clear from the fic itself, but I’m clarifying this just because I don’t trust my English enough. I debated whether I should post it or leave it in the dark, because I know this is a delicate topic for many people, but I decided to post it anyway. Please let me know if you think I should add any other warning at the beginning.)


	7. what reinforcement we may gain from hope, if not, what resolution from despair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 7: Favorite overall relationship.
> 
> Kabby, duh. But also...

**Two thousand days since Praimfaya**.

“Mama,” there’s a whisper on her side, right over her head, and Abby slowly opens one eye to look at the toddler sitting beside her, “is it my birthday yet?”

If Abby weren’t that tired, she would’ve rolled her eyes. But she can’t even bring herself to keep her eyes open, so she just mumbles something intelligible and blindly wraps an arm around the kid, bringing her down on the bed with her.

“Mama,” Eden insists, wiggling out of her mother’s arms, pushing on her shoulder so that she _definitely_ wakes up, “is it my birthday yet?”

“No, baby,” she sighs, putting her pillow over her head and cursing Marcus for deciding to leave that early in the morning. He always went to kiss his daughter goodbye before leaving their quarters, and lately Eden would always wake up at the feel of his beard on her forehead. “There’s just a few more days, then you’ll be five.”

“Oh.”

“Will you let me sleep now?”

“Yes.”

The child is quiet for a few seconds, shifting position on the bed and hugging both her mother’s arm and her teddy (polar) bear at the same time. But the moment she feels Abby start lightly snoring, she sits up again.

“Mama,” Eden says, lifting one tiny hand over Abby’s face and pushing one of her eyelids open, making her jump, barely biting back a curse. “Will sissy come for my birthday?”

At the words, Abby feels the sleep suddenly drain out of her, opening her eyes wide and staring at the kid for a few seconds, trying to decide what’s the best thing to answer.

“Baby,” she starts, sitting up on the bed, her back to the wall, and wrapping her arms around Eden, “you know we were supposed to see the sun again a few months ago, right?” She nods, her tiny face as serious as it can be. “Clarke is up there now,” she explains, trying by all means that the smile she’s showing convinces her daughter, “doing everything she can to dig us out of here. She’s so excited to meet you, I know, and to celebrate your birthday with you… But this time won’t be possible.”

Eden’s lips are trembling. Everyone, during her whole short life, had always told her Clarke would come back for them just in time to her fifth birthday. So she had spent nights after nights trying to count with her little fingers, in vain, the days she had to wait to hug her big sister. And now, when the day’s about to come, when everyone is going crazy inside that bunker, she gets the news that she has to wait a whole other year, which for her is like an eternity away.

And Abby hugs her hard when she sees the first tear, matching with the ones she’s trying hard not to spill. If she could only break the metal and the rubble apart with her hands and reunite her family again, she’d do it in a second. But she can’t, so the only thing she has left is to cry with her baby in her arms, hoping and praying that the twenty-four-year-old woman Clarke is now has just enough strength to save them one more time.

* * *

Hours later, Abby hears the door opening and knows without having to check it’s Marcus.

“It seems someone’s took over my place in the bed,” he says dryly, dipping his head to kiss Abby and the child sleeping in her arms. But he catches on immediately with her expression, and the dried tears in both of their cheeks, and his brow furrows while sitting besides them. “Not a good morning?”

“Clarke,” is her only explanation, and he nods.

“We shouldn’t have ever told her about the five-year mark,” Marcus says, running his fingertips lightly over the kid’s back. “We just made everything worse.”

“How could we have known?” she shakes her head, hugging Eden more tightly and shifting her body until she was flat on her back with the kid inside her arms. “We all thought the day five years had passed, they would come back. We all thought we would have a way to dig ourselves out of the rubble from the inside. Did you ever, even for a second, imagine we could be stuck here when Eden turned five?”

He doesn’t have to answer for her to know he didn’t. After everything they had gone through that first few months inside the bunker, they had comforted themselves saying at least Eden would be able to celebrate her fifth birthday under the sun, running between the trees and pointing at birds, clouds, the leaves fallen on the grass. They had imagined it so many times, it was hard to accept they were still in there, with no certainty to when would their daughter first feel the sunlight in her skin.

“What if they never made it up there?” Abby asks after a few seconds, the question she hadn’t dared to ask for two thousand days making her hands tremble and her breath catch on her throat. “What if that’s why we were never able to establish any kind of communication, because that damned rocket wasn’t made for that many people trying to take off in the middle of the apocalypse? What if… What if they’re all dead, Marcus? What if we have to spend the rest of our lives here? What if Eden is never able to see the sun?”

Marcus shakes his head firmly, wrapping an arm around Abby and bringing her head down to his shoulder.

“You remember the day we decided to call her Eden?” he asks, and Abby nods despite the surprising change of topic. “You said, in no time she’d be playing around my mother’s tree, and that she would be smiling at her granddaughter from wherever she is.”

“I said that, Marcus, but why…?”

“My mom’s there, I know that. She’s taking care of Clarke wherever she is. You know, when I was a kid, she used to tell me about Guardian Angels, whose purpose was taking care of a person and making sure nothing bad happened to them. Especially kids.” He eyes her, and sees her tearing up a little at the thought. So he grabs her tiny hand between both of his, and smiles. “Mom would never let Clarke be alone. She’s always been there for her, ever since the moment she died. She’s gonna be fine up there, and Eden’s gonna be fine down here. And then, when everything is better, my mom will make sure her granddaughter will see the sun and the stars and all the wonderful things she dreamed about every day while watering the Eden tree. She always had hope.”

* * *

 **Two thousand and ten days since Praimfaya**.

It’s been ages since they were alone, completely and blissfully alone. They love their daughter dearly, but she is a curious little thing and a light sleeper, and having a kid in the same room as them for the last five years has been both a blessing and a curse sometimes. They wouldn’t change it for the world, but still…

Abby rolls her hips over his, _hard,_ and Marcus groans. He wraps a hand around a fistful of hair and pulls, enough that Abby’s mouth leaves his neck and is back to his. It’s not a kiss more than it’s just breathing together, panting in each other’s mouths, tongues sweeping and stroking and making them go higher and higher.

Until that’s not even enough.

“Baby, I need…” But he can’t finish the sentence, because Abby’s hand, delicate but firm, is between their bodies and then, “Fuck, Abby,” he groans. Her hand is on his cock and he can’t say much after that. They are used to silent, hard, frantic sex in a closet in medical, or at three in the morning under the covers when they can listen Eden snoring on the other side of the room. Fleeting moments, there and then gone, no way to enjoy themselves for more than a few minutes before it _has_ to be over.

When in Polis, even though Praimfaya was looming over their heads, they felt like they had all the time in the world. Endless afternoons in bed learning every detail of each other’s bodies, where to touch to make them sigh, or where not to be gentle to make them scream. And after ten days, it was all over for more time than they could bear. Right after they found a solution, hard decisions and forgiveness, in that order, they had only five months to themselves, before they were a family of three (of four, reminds her Marcus. Of six, Abby teases him right after), and all the time they thought they had had was over.

But today Eden is with her Auntie Niylah, having begged for a sleepover now that she’s a “big girl who’s five”, and won’t return to their small quarters until tomorrow, when Niylah drops her off in Medical at the beginning of her five o’clock shift.

Marcus is now on his back, feet planted on the mattress and hips going up, up, up. Abby’s hair is all over his face, and it would be all he could see if his eyes were to be open. But he can’t, everything’s too much; from the way Abby’s strong body is leaning over his, slamming her hips down as hard as she can, to the feeling of her warm wetness fluttering around him.

They should take it slow, that’s what both of them are thinking. But they can’t, not now. Not when they are inches away from one of the strongest orgasms they’ve had in probably years, and when they have all night long to go again however the hell they want. And that’s a thing Abby is grateful for, thanking whatever God is up there, because she will never get tired of listening to Marcus’ desperate groans on her ear, or the way his body feels when she collapses on top of him, or the way his fingers trace the shape of her spine back while she falls asleep.

* * *

In the morning, with Marcus’ sweaty chest right under her cheek, both of them sticky and smelling of sex, Abby can’t help but think this is what happiness looks like. She’s right where she belongs, and...

Knock. Knock. Knock.

_Damn._

“Mama! Daddy! Are you awake? Can I hide in here? Auntie Niylah and I are playing hide-and-seek and she’ll never know I’m here!”

Okay, right. _This_ , —standing up, covering Marcus with a rumpled sheet and hastily putting her underwear and his shirt on to open the door to their daughter—, is what happiness absolutely looks like. _Just one of us left,_ she thinks, picking up Eden in her arms and smiling against her hair. _It can’t be long now._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These "10 days of Abby Griffin" thing ended in September, I know, I know. But I've been quite busy and I really had the intention of finishing this piece. So, here we go again. I'm sorry for all the grammar mistakes you have just seen. And I know this is more "kabby+eden" than just Kabby as a favorite relationship, but... Whatever. This is what came up.  
> Thanks for reading, leaving kudos and comments! Even if I don't answer here (I'm awkward and never know what's right to say, sorry), I'm really thankful and you can reach me on Twitter, too :)  
> Jo.-


End file.
